1983 - [A fifteenth Arizona county, LaPaz, was established within the state this year.]

[May: The first National Certification Program was offered by NAHUC. Sixty-seven sites across the nation offered the test and 4,329 persons sat for this first unit clerk exam. (By the end of 1991, approximately 15,000 health unit coordinators would have become certified.) (See also 1980)]

November 1: Kingman Hospitals, Inc. (KHI) took over management of the MGH facility, which was renamed the Kingman Regional Hospital (KRH). The land, building, and equipment are the property of everyone who resides within the District boundary (all of Mohave County less the "Strip" area north of the Grand Canyon and school districts along the Colorado River near Bullhead City and Lake Havasu City), and is in a very real sense this community's hospital. The Hospital District then leased the hospital to KHI. Under the direction of a community non-profit board, profits immediately rose. The net profit during the first month of operation as KRH was almost $83 thousand. Any excess capital gained after day-to-day expenses are met is used for improvements such as purchasing new equipment and funding new services. The 25-member KHI board elects a seven-member executive board to directly oversee hospital expenses. The hospital receives no funds from federal, state or city taxes, and no individual or company profits from it.

An early version of the Patients Bill of Rights policy for this hospital was initiated this month.

[A three-column clinically useful biomechanical model of the spine was proposed by Francis Denis this year after he studied >400 radiographs of spinal fractures. He discovered that burst fractures, considered by Holdsworth in 1962 to be stable, were actually unstable. This led him to describe an additional column, a middle column consisting of the posterior vertebral body, the posterior annulus fibrosis, and the posterior longitudinal ligament. Disruption of two columns was required for instability. Therefore, he considered compression fractures as stable and burst fractures, Chance fractures, and fracture-dislocations as unstable, a paradigm consistent with today's treatment strategies. Denis' model has undergone modification by many authors, but the concept of three columns in the spine has withstood scrutiny. (See also 1962)]

[November 8: The new student center at the Kingman Campus of Mohave Community College was dedicated to Dr. Walter Brazie, founding president of the MCC Board of Governors.]

1984 - July: Once staffed by local physicians on an "on call" schedule, the Emergency Room now began to be staffed by individual doctors contracted by KRH through Spectrum, a Dallas, TX group which acts as an employment agency for emergency room physicians.

[September - Uptown Drug opened a second store on Bank St & Northern Ave. north of town.]

[Bullhead City was incorporated and continued to evolve into a year-round vacation community. Bullhead Community Hospital began serving the healthcare needs of residents and visitors in the tri-state area. (See also 1946)]

[The 3M™ Medical Laser Imager was introduced. This was the first imager to make fast, high-quality medical images from digital data.]

1985 - In the Spring, KHI officials set up Desert Home Health as a non-profit corporation to administer home health care services.

April: Retired local physician Dr. Arthur Arnold was named the Kingman Area Chamber of Commerce's Citizen of the Year.

Also this month, KRH became a certified Advanced Cardiac Life Support base hospital. It was the first rural health care facility in the state and the only one in western Arizona to be so certified by the Arizona Department of Health Services. The nine emergency medical technicians -- who can now administer some cardiac drugs and monitor a patient's heart pattern in the field" -- received four months of training in advanced emergency cardiac care. The hospital purchased an $11,000 telemetry receiving station and voice and cardiac monitoring equipment for the ACLS program.

[Uptown Drug's Paul Lewis purchased the equipment from downtown's Kingman Drug (c.1926-1984). The original soda fountain bar would remain in place there at 401 E. Andy Devine Ave. and eventually become the bar for El Palacio of Kingman Mexican Restaurant.]

In the Fall, Arizona State Department of Public Safety officials approached the KRH to discuss setting up a flight program here. This was born out of a need to provide an extension to the emergency medical services available in the more remote areas of the county. Separately funded entities, the DPS personnel and flight nurses would work hand-in-hand to provide pre-hospital care in emergency situations. This was not meant to take the place of any other medical services available but rather to augment those services already in existence.

1986 - Darrell Lautaret became the new KRH administrator/chief operating officer, succeeding Don Logue.

Kingman Regional Hospital was renamed Kingman Regional Medical Center (KRMC), employing 33 RNs and approximately 300 total healthcare workers.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety Aviation Section, Ranger 41, the fourth DPS Air Rescue facility in operation in the state, became located on the KRMC campus. It serves to provide free 24-hour support to Mohave County, the fifth largest county in the nation. Crews can fly as far north as the Utah border, south to Yuma, east to Seligman, and west to the California and Nevada borders. If necessary, they will also assist other states, depending on their needs, but won't go farther than 25 miles inside another state's borders.

Seven nurses completed vigorous testing of both their physical skills and strong emergency medical backgrounds to become certified flight nurses.

Lacy House

© Mohave Museum of History and Arts. Reprinted by permission.

[May: the site of the city's first private hospital, the O.E. Walker House, was placed on the National Register of Historical Places as an excellent and unique example of a stone bungalow with Neo-Colonial influences. Since 1957 the house has been owned by Wartham "Bud" and Patsy Ann "Pat" Lacy. The original wire fence and tin 1-car garage were replaced, an enclosed porch with bath was added to the back, and the large elm and chinaberry trees were removed -- two large mulberries, one possibly original, were planted in their stead -- but otherwise the house is essentially as it was with original (antique) fixtures. (See also 1916)]

For the calendar year, DPS Air Rescue handled the following numbers of flights:

August: Hospital District No. 1 of Mohave County went to the voters seeking $12 million in bonds to build a medical office-administration building and remodel the hospital. The electorate failed to pass the bond issue because the election had been called quickly, two local doctors went on record against it, and the expansion plan was seen as being too extravagant.

1987 - KRMC became more than just a participant in the Kingman Health Fair -- we were both co-sponsor and host.

[The first use of coronary stents in humans was reported. While fat heart arteries were relatively easy to fix, about two-thirds of patients undergoing angioplasty suffered from blockages in very skinny ones -- under two millimeters in diameter. Typically doctors would squeeze these arteries open with a balloon and install a bare metal mesh lattice to keep those blood vessels open. (Within a decade, stents would become commonplace and eliminate many of angioplasty's complications. By that time stents, would be used in almost half of the one million patients undergoing angioplasty worldwide.) (See also 1978, 2004)]

[The first laparoscopic cholecystectomy -- gall bladder surgery -- using video techniques was performed in France. (Within five years this would become a standard procedure.) (See also 1961, 1972)]

[This year chiropractors won a major anti-trust lawsuit against the American Medical Association, which had originally been filed in 1976. Henceforth the AMA could not prevent or restrict its members from referring to or cooperating with chiropractors; the lawsuit also greatly weakened the AMA's publicity assault on chiropractic, which had started under the direction of former JAMA editor Morris Fishbein. (See also 1934, 1963)]

[By this time, the use of video-mediated instruction to improve consistency and quality of CPR instruction had begun to be explored. (See also 1963, 1966, 1974, 1980)]

By year end, KRMC's current logo and color scheme had been created and was being integrated into every phase of daily hospital activities from letterhead to the hospital sign on Stockton Hill Road.

1988 - June 30: During the year ending with this date, the Pink Ladies Auxiliary donated 15,526 hours of volunteer work by an average of fifty-two members. Also this past year, the Laboratory installed a chemical analyzer which gave technicians the ability to do in-house testing in order to obtain and keep track of patient blood profiles. Physical Therapy ended this fiscal year with 20,066 procedures performed, a 92% increase over last year, due in part to the hiring of a permanent, full-time Physical Therapist. The Radiology Department acquired and permanently relocated a new Computer Axial Tomography Unit (CT Scan). The Education Department established a hospital satellite network to provide continuing education for physicians and employees in virtually all areas of the hospital. The satellite network would decrease the need for hospital staff to travel elsewhere for training seminars.

For the fiscal year ending on June 30, the KRMC staff handled the following:

1989 - October: Hospital District voters by a margin of 4 to 1 backed a $14 million general obligation bond for the expansion of KRMC. The plan offered this time was seen as leaner than the one in 1986 and without frills. Over 10,000 people were seen in KRMC's Emergency Room this year. The four-bed ICU/CCU was located in renovated patient rooms on the third floor.

[The year ended with Kingman having received a near-record low amount of precipitation of only 3.95". (See 1956)]

[The Maxair™ Autohaler™ Asthmatic Inhaler was introduced. This is an accurate dose inhaler triggered by breathing.]

1990 - [Mohave County pop.: 93,497 ; Kingman pop.: 12,722; Bullhead City pop.: 21,951; Lake Havasu City pop.: 24,363.]

[Only about 30% of all males at age 65 were still in the work force.]

Art Gross became the hospital administrator.

June 30: For the fiscal year ending today, there were 970 outpatient surgeries. Some other statistics for this year are as listed below. Fifty-three Pink Ladies volunteered 15,620 hours of service to patients and their families and assisting numerous hospital departments in their daily functions.

September: Construction was completed of a new Business Office/Administration Building, paid for out of the revenues KHI paid to the District.

For the fiscal years ending on June 30, the KRMC staff handled the following:

For the calendar years, DPS Air Rescue handled the following numbers of flights:

* The helicopter was down for repair/maintenance 195 days.

[The Arizona Board of Respiratory Care Examiners was created this year to protect the public from unauthorized and unqualified practice of respiratory care and from unprofessional conduct by persons licensed to practice respiratory care. The state legislature also recognized that the practice of respiratory care is a dynamic and changing art and science which is continually evolving to include new developments and more sophisticated techniques in patient care, thus creating a need for continuing education and maintenance of minimum standards of competence for those who practice this area.]

1991 - Med Series 4, a GTE computer software package was installed on the AS400 "mainframe" to link the entire hospital. Payroll was first online in April, followed by Medical Records and Patient Accounting. By October communication with the different floors for the nurses' ordering was completed. (Upgrades and additional systems would be added over the next several years.)

August: Ground was broken for the hospital expansion.

October: Starting this month, all smoking inside any building on the campus became strictly prohibited.

[Open for only eight years, the Revco drugstore on Highway 66 a few blocks north of I-40 closed down as part of that national company's bankruptcy reorganization plan. Hundreds of stores were sold or closed. (The building here would eventually be incorporated into the nextdoor Bashas' grocery store as the Bakery Department.)]

[December: The Patient Self Determination Act went into effect. Affecting health care facilities and physicians in the U.S., the PSDA required all incoming patients to be given a statement of rights in regard to making health care decisions and to be asked if they had an advance directive. The two most common forms of the latter are the Living Will and the Durable Power of Attorney.]

1992 - Occupational Health Service was established. Also, Sally Eakerns, RN, CNM, joined the Allied Medical Staff as Kingman's first certified nurse midwife. And a second AS400 mainframe computer was set up for the Lab Dynacor software.

The Oncology/Outpatient Clinics was first set up in a trailer unit on the hospital campus. (See also 1996)

[An estimated one in three persons in the general population used at least one unconventional therapy this year. About 72% of those who did use unconventional therapies did not tell their physicians that they had done so. This year the National Institutes of Health established the Office of Alternative Medicine, lending a certain national priority to CAM research. The center's first year budget was $2 million. (In 1998, the Office would be renamed the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, increasing the visibility of CAM research as well as the availability of government money available for such research. In 1999, its budget would be $50 million.) (See also 1997, 2001, 2002)]

(Les Byram, the original chairman of the hospital district, was elected to be mayor of Kingman. He would serve thusly through May of 2004.)

[1993 - January: Kingman recorded 5.87" of rain this month and another 4.62" in the next.]

June 30: Monica Olds, daughter of Cathy J.H. Olds and Alan Olds was born today. Monica became the first "100th" baby born in a month at KRMC.

[July 5: On the twentieth anniversary of the Doxol Explosion (see 1973), Wia Manua Park (whose name meant "Sad Happening" and which is just east of Kingman Junior High School at 0.7 miles from KRMC) was renamed to Kingman Firefighter Memorial Park.]

August: After almost exactly two years, KRMC's $11 million expansion was completed with a new Emergency Department and an 8-bed Intensive Care Unit, a 15-bed Telemetry Unit, a 7-bed Pediatrics Unit, an expanded Radiology Department and Surgery area, a new Dining Room and Conference Room, and an expanded Laboratory and Pharmacy. Some new 48,000 square feet were added to the facility, which also had 20,000 square feet renovated, increasing the bed capacity to 131. More than 50 local employers were contracted with the new Occupational Health and Medicine program. The 1992-1993 annual report listed the Mission Statement: "The Mission of Kingman Regional Medical Center is to provide progressive, cost effective, quality healthcare to the residents of Hospital District Number One of Mohave County and surrounding areas. Kingman Hospital, Inc. will endeavor to accomplish this Mission through teamwork including doctors, staff, administrators, volunteers, and board members."

November: KRMC became an American Heart Association Basic Life Support (BLS) Training Center, certified to teach Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) courses to the staff and public. Beverly Thompson, RN, MSN, Director of Education/Community Programs, who had been an AHA Instructor since 1981, was appointed the BLS Affiliate Faculty member.

Late this year a Novell software program was installed which computerized the Dietary Department. The cash register in the Cafeteria was also now able to scan employee name badges to allow crediting of meals.

[There were now 6,467 hospitals in the U.S.]

[Certified nurse midwives (CNMs) are registered nurses who have completed their midwifery education at an accredited graduate-level program and have passed a certification examination. Hard-fought battles over the past 30 years have resulted in establishing the professional stature of CNMs. The 5,200 CNMs in practice this year attended 196,228 births, accounting for about 5% of all U.S. deliveries.]

[December 31: The Kingman Wal-Mart opened its doors across Stockton Hill Rd. from KRMC. Many of our employees have since shopped there and some of our departments have also gotten miscellaneous supplies, decorations, snacks, and gifts from there as well.]

1994 - February: The Skilled Nursing Unit opened.

April: A new 1.0 Tesla MRI was installed, which allows improved diagnostic images on a daily basis rather than on a weekly basis as was previously provided. Since cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and accounts for the highest percentage of patient/hospital days stay in this nation, a Cardiac Catheterization Lab was constructed to expand the hospital's cardiology services.

[July: Walgreen's opened its first store in Kingman, two blocks north of KRMC. Initially the pharmacy there filled 60-70 prescriptions per day. In a decade that quantity would be up to 500 per day.]

August: Brian Turney became the interim hospital administrator. (He would officially assume the full post the following February.)

[The all-volunteer organization Kingman Cancer Care Unit was created to keep the majority of funds raised in the Kingman area for cancer patients right here. Patients no longer had to endure red tape with the American Cancer Society or become frustrated when local money left the area. Some 75% of the money goes directly toward helping locals, while the other quarter goes to the University of Arizona Cancer Lab for cancer research. The annual festival, then in its 19th year, was renamed the Kingman Cancer Care Unit Arts and Crafts Fair. The funds help patients with prescriptions, personal items related to their treatment, and transportation and room and board when they get treatment at the Arizona Cancer Center Medical Oncology Clinic in Tucson. Again, Helen Graves was the driving force behind the changes. (See also 1976)]

[The Arizona Institute of Medicine and Surgery (AIMS) opened at 3636 Stockton Hill Road as an internal medicine family practice. (The staff would include a broad range of specialties such as ophthalmology, internal medicine, gastroenterology, pediatrics, allergy and immunology, family practice, orthorpedic and general surgery, and podiatry. A recovery care center would house patients who needed to stay overnight. An emergency care department would also be open there 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.)]

[Passage of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act by Congress allowed dietary supplements to be sold over the counter with little oversight unless the FDA could demonstrate a product posed a clear danger to public health. These are products that contain ingredients including vitamins, minerals, herbs or other botanicals, amino acids, and substances such as enzymes, organ tissues, glandulars, and metabolites, and whose ingredients were marketed in the U.S. before Oct. 15, 1994. Manufacturers are expected to be self-regulated and encouraged but not required to report to the FDA adverse events from dietary supplements.]

1995 - This year the number of employees was 550, with 474 of them being full time. Facility square footage totaled 159,000. PPS Medcart was installed for automatic secure distribution of narcotics and similar prescriptions. The Optica document imaging system was put in place. And the AS400 mainframe was now able to link with the hospital's PC network. MS Windows software superceded DOS throughout KRMC. Initial consideration was given to opening in the future a so-called wellness center, which would essentially be just a cardiac rehabilitation unit.

[The Glendale, Arizona, campus of Midwestern University was founded this year when the Board of Trustees approved the purchase of land and the building of this new campus. (Midwestern University had been founded in 1900 as the American College of Osteopathic Medicine and Surgery. The organization was incorporated in Chicago, Illinois, to train physicians in a not-for-profit environment.) The Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine in Glendale also began in 1995, the College of Health Sciences the next year, and the College of Pharmacy–Glendale in 1998. The campus would see rapid growth in the number of buildings, academic programs, faculty, staff, and students. Within a decade the Glendale campus, located on 135 acres, would have buildings that provide for academic classrooms, state-of-the-art laboratories, student housing, and an on-campus osteopathic clinic.]

[Because of the growing population in Arizona it was decided to give the state a second telephone area code. All of the state outside of the Phoenix metropolitan region now had to use the 520 prefix.]

[There were some 26,000 physician assistants (PAs) in full-time practice in the U.S., 47% of whom worked in outpatient primary care. PAs were recognized by medical licensing boards in 49 states and the District of Columbia, and could prescribe mediciations in 39 states, D.C., and Guam. More than 92% of PAs have passed the Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination. About 52% were male, 30% were military veterans, and they averaged more than 9 years of practice. (This year, 75% of the 5,558 PA students in 78 accredited programs were female. The programs offer 1 year of basic science plus 1 year of clinical rotation. Enrollment and available programs were up 20% and 18% respectively from two years ago.)]

[Airomir™ Metered-dose Inhaler was introduced. This was the first medicinal aerosol that did not rely on a chlorofluorocarbon propellant.]

1996 - May: The 35,000-square-foot Medical Professional Center of Kingman (MPC) opened just west of the hospital on the KRMC campus at month's end. Outpatient services (Occupational Health, Home Health and Oncology/Outpatient Clinic) and leased medical office space for physicians were now available in the building paid for by KHI without any need for bonds. On the second floor was established the J. Leonard Neal Conference Room, built and furnished by way of a generous donation from Grace Neal.

(Coming out of MPC's front door you are looking right at the peaks of the Hualapai Mountains with their play of light and shadow throughout the day. The 8,417 ft. highest point is perhaps 15 miles to the southeast of us.)

[Also this month, the Revised Arizona Anatomical Gift Act (House Bill 2315, Title 36-841 et al) was signed into law. One of the most comprehensive organ, eye and tissue donor laws in the United States this act addressed issues previously hindering donation in Arizona. The main provisions of the bill included further steps to help resolve the critical organ shortage: 1) by emphasizing an individual's right to be a donor, 2) by making the decision of an individual to donate before his or her death as final and not requiring the consent of any person after the donor's death, and 3) by empowering the individual to make his or her own decisions regarding donation and ensuring that those wishes are carried out. (Prior to this, the deceased person's family made all decisions regarding donation, even if the deceased person had documented donation consent through an executed will, living will, or other valid method of donation.)]

[The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) was enacted to protect health insurance coverage for workers and their families when they change or lose their jobs. Going into effect no later than July 1, 1997, a plan or issuer could not exclude coverage for any preexisting condition for more than 12 months after an individual's enrollment date (18 months for a late enrollee). Once an individual had health coverage, this coverage could be used to reduce or eliminate any preexisting condition exclusion that might be applied to an individual who moved to another employer's group health plan. The concept of portability is really one of an individual receiving credit for maintaining health coverage, even though it may be under different health plans or policies. HIPAA also contained provisions to reduce the costs and administrative burdens of health care by making possible the standardized, electronic transmission of many administrative and financial transactions. Health information privacy was also a requirement of administrative simplification.]

[Nurse Practitioners (NPs) are registered nurses who have trained at the master's level. It takes a minimum of 2 years to complete both the course work and the clinical preceptorship of the program, some 485 of which were offered by 206 universities. An extensive study concluded that NPs can deliver 80% of the services provided by primary care physicians and can perfrom them with comparable quality at decreased cost. Also, NPs have benefited from society's revived interest in primary care medicine and the needs of underserved communities. Although they are independently licensed, NPs seek collaborative practice with physicians rather than dependent practice. Twenty states allowed completely autonomous practice by NPs, 48 states allowed some form of medication prescribing authority under standard procedures, and 11 states were legislating complete independence.]

Fall: A sleep lab was set up by this time in the Oncology/Outpatient Clinics, making using of a pair of donated rooms during afterhours. Space was made in the filing room for the polysomnographer to observe the patients and record the findings. Fifty-seven patients would be seen by Dr. Riedy, KRMC's part-time pulmonologist who was Board Certified in Sleep Medicine, that first year. (The trailer formerly used by the Clinics now served as the home for Human Resources and Quality Management.) (See also 1992, 2002, 2004 )

1997 - April: Faulty brakes caused a Las Vegas-based tour bus headed to the West Rim of the Grand Canyon to flip, injuring 16 of the 25 passengers. All the passengers, mostly from Taiwan, were taken to an interim medical center set up near the rim at Quartermaster Point. Paramedics then took 15 passengers to KRMC. One person was taken to University Medical Center, where she was treated and released. Most suffered back and neck injuries and minor cuts, officials said.

August: More than 150 people were injured when a Los Angeles-to-Chicago Amtrak train carrying about 318 passengers and crew members over a bridge derailed when a trestle collapsed, apparently caused by recent flash flooding. In all, 153 people were treated for injuries, 14 victims were admitted to hospitals and at least three people were reported to be in critical condition. About 100 people were treated at KRMC, 70 for bruises, sprains and other minor injuries and the others for more serious injuries. The train was reportedly traveling at about 90 mph. It derailed as the third of its four engines crossed the 5-to-7-foot-high bridge, leaving seven passenger cars behind it zigzagged but upright after crossing the bridge. One of the train's double-decker passenger cars was left partly on the track, straddling the 30-foot-wide stream bed in a desolate desert area 13 miles northeast of Kingman and 80 miles southeast of Las Vegas. Because of the heavy overnight rainfall, the crash site was only accessible by four-wheel drive vehicles. Helicopters, ambulances and ten school buses carried the passengers to Kingman where most were taken to a shelter at the junior high school. Wire services initially reported that eight people were killed in the crash but later reported that that information was incorrect. There were no fatalities from this accident. Coincidentally, the Intensive Care Unit had three "code" emergencies at the same time as the accident was being handled, further stretching our resources.

[A much revived Revco D.S. Inc. was merged with CVS to form the nation's largest drugstore chain with 4000 stores in 24 states plus the District of Columbia.)]

[Approximately 42% of people in the U.S. reported using at least one form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) within the previous year. The term alternative medicine encompasses a spectrum of approaches to medical conditions not routinely used by conventional (i.e., 20th century Western) practitioners. Once negatively viewed as not conforming to accepted standards of care, CAM has been evolving to describe a more positive, symbiotic relationship between unconventional and conventional medicine. The field of CAM encompasses a multitude of different approaches and beliefs that are generally linked by their emphasis on so-called natural modalities of healing and wellness. Public opinion surveys have suggested similar overall patterns of use in European countries, although the popularity of specific CAM modalities varies greatly from country to country. CAM is believed by many patients to address the root cause of symptoms rather than what some feel to be conventional medicine's excessive focus on suppression of symptoms. And while many patients have insufficient knowledge of the CAM modality they are choosing, they have turned to these practices to get relief from chronic conditions that have not responded to conventional medicine. The National Institutes of Health/National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine have classified CAM practices into five domains: 1) Alternative medical systems (traditional Indian Ayurveda medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, homeopathy), 2) Mind-body interventions (biofeedback, hypnosis, meditation, prayer), 3) Biologic-based therapies (dietary therapy, herbal medicine, megavitamins, shark cartilage), 4) Manipulative and body-based methods (chiropractic, massage therapy), and 5) Energy therapies (therapeutic touch, qigong, bioelectric field manipulation, reiki). As of this year, 64 percent of 117 responding allopathic medical schools reported offering elective courses in CAM or including such topics in required courses.]

[Perhaps the most compelling reason why medical schools should become involved in CAM, says Steven Kouris, DO, MPH, assistant professor and associate chairman of the department of psychiatry at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford, is to make sure that doctors have the necessary knowledge to ensure their patients' safety and well being. "Medical schools are in an excellent position to educate the current and future medical community on complementary forms of health care and do meaningful research that will help people make right and safe decisions," said Kouris. "As part of our role in serving the community, we shouldn't ignore this issue because it may be uncomfortable. This is about health care and healing and the safety of our patients. If there exists an alternative therapy that may help a patient, a physician should be aware of this." (See also 1992, 2001, 2002)]

[August: The Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Science, issued the first in a series of Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs). These are multi-level reccomendations which will update and eventually replace the old Recommended Daily Allowances (RDAs). (See also 1941)]

September: The Kingman hospital celebrated its 75th Anniversary.

Also this year, the Lotus Note software for intraofffice communications went online.

[Bullhead Community Hospital changed its name to Western Arizona Regional Medical Center, or WARMC, as part of a major expansion. It is a 90-bed, Joint Commission-accredited, acute care hospital that is Bullhead City's largest employer.]

1998 - [May: The two-year old Province Healthcare company acquired Lake Havasu Samaritan Regional Hospital.]

June: KRMC acquired Cerbat Medical in the MPC from Sedona Healthcare and gained at least forty employees. Managing a national chain of medical offices, Sedona had filed for bankruptcy and the hospital stepped in to purchase Cerbat. This would keep the ownership of the highly successful business within the community.

June 30: For the fiscal year ending this day, there were 3,903 surgical procedures. Sixty Auxiliary members volunteered a total of 19,800 hours, and also performed 720 free blood pressure tests, photographed 492 babies, assisted with four blood drives which collected 512 pints of blood. Through fund raising activities, primarily maintaining the Hospital gift Shop, the Auxiliary was able to raise thousands of dollars that were returned to the hospital in the form of new equipment, six $250 scholarships, and much more. Appearing for the first time in the annual report was the KRMC Foundation Mission Statement: "Kingman Regional Medical Center Foundation is a charitable, non-profit organization created to receive supplemental income for capital, operations, and program needs essential to Kingman Regional Medical Center's growth and development. It is through friend raising and fund raising that KRMC Foundation assures the hospital's role as a major healthcare provider."

November: The Kronos software for employee namebadge scanning for clocking-in and clocking-out went online. Also, late this year an initial website was started for the hospital as an extension of the e-mail account set up with the local phone company.

[The American Heart Association trained 2.4 million lay rescuers in adult and pediatric CPR.]

[By this time, over 50 percent of all patients with burns involving 80 percent of their total body-surface area survive, and the survival rate may be even higher for adolescents and young adults, among whom almost no burn is too extensive to preclude recovery. This remarkable success can be attributed to a number of therapeutic developments, including vigorous fluid resuscitation, the early excision of burn wounds, advances in critical care and nutrition, powerful topical and sytemic antibiotics, and the evolution of specialized, multidisciplinary burn centers. Studies confirm that advanced age (more than 60 years), extensive burn injury (more than 40 percent of the body-surface area), and inhalation injury are the strongest predictors of death among patients with burns. (See also 1945, 1973)]

1999 - February: KRMC opened its newest and most innovative department: the 36,000-square-foot Del E. Web Wellness and Rehabilitation Center, on the west-end of the Kingman Medical Profesional Center. This was many times larger than what the initial 1995 plans had called for. Constructed by T.R. Orr Construction, it had a $3.5 million price tag for construction and equipment. A gift of $1 million from the Del E. Webb Foundation allowed KHI and its board to keep membership costs low. The public would be allowed to use the equipment -- more physical therapy equipment than would otherwise be possible -- to enable the hospital to maximize its return. Making people more healthy was seen as the logical way to reduce the hospital's high occupancy rate so that the seriously ill patients would be sure to have a bed. The center includes a 25-yard competition lap pool, aerobic areas, free-weights, half-court basketball / volleyball court, racquetball courts, cardiac and respiratory rehabilitation management, and computerized exercise stations. Member card scanning is in place for record keeping and employee payroll deductions. Adjacent to the Wellness Center is also a larger Resource Center for the KRMC Education Department with a health library, capacity for satellite teleconferencing, and an 85-person dividable classroom/conference room.

[March: The Mohave Valley Hospital opened a 5,500-square-foot imaging center in the Laughlin-Bullhead City, Ariz., area to offer X-rays, ultrasounds, mammography and other radiological services. By the end of the same month, the hospital's owner, Sierra Health Services Inc. announced it would close the 12-bed Mohave Valley Hospital (eliminating 45 positions) and end a 5,000-enrollee Medicare HMO operation in Mohave County and Laughlin this year. Sierra was Nevada's largest health care company and had purchased Mohave Valley in 1996 for an undisclosed sum from the hospital's then-chief executive officer and owner.]

May: The annual and mandatory Nursing Skills Festival was held for the first time in the Conference Rooms adjacent to the Wellness Center. Previously this event (and the October hospital-wide Safety Carnival) was held in the DPS Air Rescue hangar, on a Wednesday and Thursday since those were the days the helicopter would be off-site. Various staff inservice programs, CPR classes, teleconferences, and support groups would eventually also be held in these Conference Rooms (beginning in late February 1999).

July: The second line of the KRMC Foundation Mission Statement was revised by this time to read: "As we seek friends and funds, we keep the donors' hopes and dreams in the forefront so that we can build lasting friendships with them and Kingman Regional Medical Center."

August: KRMC was given 150 new car seats by the Governor's Office of Highway Safety to provide to new parents.

[2000 - Mohave County pop.: 155,032 ; Kingman pop.: 20,069; New Kingman-Butler CDP (a Census Designated Place, just north of town) pop.: 14,810; Golden Valley CDP (a few miles west of town) pop: 4,515; Bullhead City pop.: 33,769; Mohave Valley CDP (about 15 miles south of Bullhead City) pop: 13,694; Lake Havasu City pop.: 41,938; Laughlin, NV pop: 8,083. There were 5,130,632 people in Arizona and 281 million in the U.S.]

[The estimated life expectancy for persons born this year in America was 77.1 years (74.2 for males of all races, 77.9 for females of all races). The U.S. cesarean delivery rate was about 26% of deliveries. The total infant mortality rate was 6.9 per 1,000 live births during the first year of life (4.6 of those occurred during the first month and 3.7 of those during the first week). Health care expenditures had grown to more than 13 percent of the country's gross national product. There were an estimated 2.7 million licensed registered nurses in the U.S., about 40.3% of which reported completing an associate degree program. Only an estimated 9.1% of the RNs were now under the age of 30 and 31.7% were under 40. About 5.9% of all nurses were men.]

[There were now only 349 hospital beds per 100,000 persons in the U.S. this year. This was, in part, due to the development of same-day surgeries, use of therapies that reduced hospital admissions, and changes to commercial health insurance that promoted reduced use of hospital care and shortened hospital stays. (See also 1975)]

February: The domain name of www.azkrmc.com was acquired and the hospital strengthened its position on the Internet's World Wide Web.

March:The first step in the $23 million building expansion became apparent to the public when the renovated emergency room waiting area reopened after three months of construction. (Open 24 hours a day every day of the year, the Emergency Department handles walked-in, driven-in or flown-in cases of motor vehicle accidents, chest pains, heart attacks, drug overdoses and intoxications, attempted suicides, respiratory problems, burns, lacerations, broken bones and fractures, gunshot wounds, domestic abuse, possible miscarriages, migraines, diabetic problems, nosebleeds, kidney infections, appendicitis, gall bladder complaints, and other conditions. Uncommon is the patient who is brought in without at least one family member or friend to wait for him/her to be treated and admitted or released. The patients range from new or long-time area residents to interstate truckers to national and international travellers just passing through. Of course, none of them had planned a visit to our ED as part of their day's activities.)

[Uptown Drug opened a third store this month, now out in Golden Valley on Highway 68.]

April: Twenty-five high school students joined the Auxiliary as Volunteens (once known as Candy Stripers) and promptly donated 1,280 hours around the hospital's departments. Also this month, a 6-passenger cart, the KRMC "Cruiser," was added to the volunteer services to transport patients and visitors to the hospital entrances from the parking lots during the construction project. (Within two months 1,140 passengers would be logged.)

May: A state-of-the-art Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory opened.

June 30: For the fiscal year ending this day, sixty-five active Auxiliary members had volunteered a total of 30,473 hours, and also performed 768 free blood pressure tests, photographed 478 babies, assisted with four blood drives which collected 541 pints of blood. Auxiliary/Volunteer Services fund raising enabled $19,000 to be donated back to KRMC for new equipment and 11 $250 scholarships.

July 1: KRMC acquired Southwest Medical Imaging, off campus at 3104 Stockton Hill Road. A handful of KRMC employees had been working part of their time at the FDA- and American College of Radiology-accredited 8-year-old facility for a few years already. The previous February, the freestanding outpatient center became only the 4th site in Arizona to have the new state-of-the-art digital (filmless) mammography unit. SW Medical Imaging is also able to offer CT scans, Ultrasound, and general radiology in a convenient and expedient manner. An estimated 95% of all area mammograms are done here. [Also this month, Province Healthcare began an 110,000 square foot expansion and 40,000 square foot renovation of Havasu Regional Medical Center. By year's end, Province owned or leased 14 general acute-care hospitals in nine states and managed 40 hospitals in 16 states in non-urban markets in the U.S.]

For the fiscal years ending on June 30, the KRMC staff handled the following:

For the calendar years, DPS Air Rescue handled the following numbers of flights:

e Estimated because of mid-year change in record-keeping

[Some 56% of U.S. adults -- about 114 million people -- were accessing the Internet from homes, offices, colleges, and other places by mid-year. Of that total, 86% have gone online to look up information on healthcare or specific diseases, up from 71% in 1998. (An unknown number of persons under age 18 were also looking up health information online.)]

[In 1990 Congress approved settlement payments to the victims of America's nuclear testing program, but only some of Utah and Nevada and the extreme northwestern corner of of our state known as the "Arizona Strip" would be covered. A decade later, amendments added five Arizona counties -- but not Mohave, with some of the highest cancer rates in the state. A typographical error apparently rendered this county's name as "Mojave" -- which, as such, is in California and therefore not subject to the provisions of the legislation. (The Mohave Downwinders group continues to push for acknowledgement of the damage caused by exposure to the "harmless" fallout.) (See also 1951)]

2001 - February: KRMC Education Department initially offered "Boot Camp for New Dads" as part of its childbirth education program.

July: The Intern Program began.

August: The Kingman High School Swim Team was formed when the Wellness Center's 140,000-gallon swimming pool was made available to the school. Each year between August and October, about six swim meets would be hosted here.

Now with male members, the Pink Ladies Auxiliary's name was changed to "Volunteers in Blue."

[Data from all 125 allopathic medical schools in response to the 2000-2001 Liaison Committee on Medical Education Annual Medical School Questionnaire indicated that although no medical school requires a separate complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) course, 91 schools include CAM in required conventional medical courses, 64 offer CAM as stand-alone elective, and 32 include CAM as part of an elective. Required and elective courses included acupuncture, herbal medicine, homeopathy, meditation, manual healing techniques, nutritional supplement therapy, and spirituality, according to the questionnaire.]

[One of the most extensive postgraduate CAM training programs is at the University of Arizona. This two-year fellowship in integrative medicine is limited to four allopathic or osteopathic physicians per year who have completed residency training. To expand the availability of training in integrative medicine, the University of Arizona recently created an associate fellowship program. Combining distributed-learning and on-site training, this two-year associate fellowship is available to 50 allopathic and osteopathic physicians and a small number of nurse practitioners per class for the class entering in 2003.]

[September: The most dramatic example of telemedicine to date in the operating room was the robotic cholecystectomy that Dr. Jacques Marescaux performed from the office of French Telecom in New York, NY, upon his patient in Strasbourg, France. This event truly shattered the image of the OR as only a place of sublmie isolation. (The first example of telemedicine in surgery was first reported some ten years earlier and has continued to advance as a novel, if not a routine, part of surgical poractice.) Telemedicine in the OR can also be as simple as teaching a class from another part of the campus or another continent, opening the operating room to a wide audience of students and fellow surgeons without crowding or contaminating the precious space of the OR.]

[Population growth resulted in additional telephone area codes for Arizona. Specifically, northern Arizona now began to use the 928 prefix.]

2002 - June 30: For the fiscal year ending this day, KRMC employed almost 200 nurses, 780 full-time employees, and nearly 900 total personnel.

Auxiliary members volunteered a total of 24,223 hours, and also performed 558 free blood pressure tests, photographed 406 babies, assisted with four blood drives which collected 574 pints of blood.

Auxiliary/Volunteer Services fund raising enabled $10,000 to be donated back to KRMC for new equipment and nine $250 scholarships and one special memorial $350 scholarship named for recently deceased volunteer Evelyn Peterson. Some 35,187 passengers were given courtesy rides to the hospital entrances from the parking lots during the construction project. There were now 40 Volunteens.

July 1: KRMC received accreditation from the state for the new 20-bed Acute Rehabilitation unit.

Also in July the new turnaround driveway to the Main Entrance was opened. This allowed further access to the new "user friendly" sky-lit south wing which has the double sliding doors of the main entrance, an information desk, carptered waiting areas, the business office and patient accounting, and four check-in stations in Admitting. These latter are larger than the two enclosed cubicles that reminded some people of phone booths in the old arrangement. The new gift shop there has doubled in size and has a larger storeroom. The space in the administration building vacated by the business offices was being remodeled for use by Human Resources, which formerly shared with Quality Management a modular building outside and north of the hospital.

August: The newly expanded cafeteria opened with seating for 160 (up from 90), plus room for 30 more on the covered outdoor dining patio. Additional office and cold storage space was gotten. During the expansion, Nutritional Services worked out of an 18-wheel trailer and the cafeteria was in another trailer. Not a single meal was missed. This was a pioneering project in the use of these vehicles to that extent.

September 17: A Grand Opening Ceremony was held for the Expansion 2002 project. Facility square footage totaled 382,000. Intensive care beds now numbered 20, as also did those in the emergency room. Total bed capacity was 213. Significant landscaping and re-modelling also was completed around the campus, in part to better channel and contain the infrequent but sudden and severe run-off from rain.

The Forsyth Healing Garden was dedicated three days later, named in recognition of Dale and Marlyn Forsyth's generous financial contribution to the KRMC Foundation. The Garden with its pond and flagstone waterfall is available to staff, patients and visitors during regular visiting hours of 8 am to 8 pm. The ironwork, two gates and eight smaller sections by Jay Burnham-Kidwell, represents various plants sprouting and sending new growth skyward. The Garden is located off of the cafeteria patio, to the left (west) of the hospital main entrance. The Garden includes eleven medium (10') pine trees, four big pine trees (15'), two mesquite trees, eight columnar juniper bushes, six dark red-blooming oleander trees, three pink-blooming crape myrtle trees, six pink-blooming crape myrtle bushes, a pyrantha bush, seasonal flowers, assorted smaller plants (gardenia, juniper, pittosporum, palms, sage, etc), large rocks, and seven concrete benches. Lights along the concrete walkways gently illuminate the scene at night. Three oleander trees and smaller bushes dot spaces along the outside of the surrounding six foot high block wall.

[To the east, the non-profit Flagstaff Medical Center is now a 260-bed regional medical center, the largest of three such centers owned by Northern Arizona Healthcare. The three counties FMC primarily serves -- Coconino, Apache and Navaho -- have a combined 2000 census population of 283,213 people.]

[October: Western Arizona Regional Medical Center (WARMC) opened a new cardiovascular suite and third floor medical/surgical unit.]

[Approximately 62% of adults in the U.S. reported using at least one form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) within the previous year. Data suggests that about one quarter of patients who use CAM do so on the advice of a conventional medical practitioner. Patients continue to see their conventional practitioners while using CAM therapies. (See also 1997)]

[Introduction of a revolutionary new concept from BAND-AID® Brand --the Liquid Bandage that promotes fast healing on contact. (See also 1920, 1951)]

[By year's end, in the U.S. there were 150,000 people living with functioning solid-organ allografts, up from 62,000 in 1993. There is also significant organ-transplant activity in a large number of other countries. Improvement in pancreatic transplantation and early promise in the transplantation of isolated islets have opened up new options for patients with type 1 diabetes.]

December: Home Health & Hospice moved to new quarters north of the Main Hospital on Sycamore. Also, with construction completed, the use of the Volunteer's shuttle service had dramatically fallen off and was now officially ended. And the KRMC project to standardize hospital wide policy development, review, revision, and on-line access (Intranet) began.

[2003 - January: The Mohave County Health and Social Services received a name change to Mohave County Department of Public Health. The new logo is "Count On Us." The Department continues to include Environmental, Senior Programs, WIC, and Nursing.]

February: Jeffrey C. Boyett, PA-C, and Ilangovan Govindarajan, MD, from KRMC were 2 of 4 speakers on the topic of "Hospice 100 Miles from Nowhere: Facing the Challenges of Rural Care" during the 15th Annual Assembly of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine in Orlando, FL.

Dr. S.I. Bokhari of KRMC co-authored the article, "Probable acute coronary syndrome secondary to fat embolism," which was published in the May-June issue of Cardiology Review (11(3):156-9).

[May 16:The ribbon-cutting ceremony was held for The Lingenfelter Center for Alzheimers and Behavioral Health, brainchild of Dr. Lingenfelter. Built next to The Gardens Care Center, "TLC" has 3 wings with an 88-patient capacity. The Lilypad Day Care Center for employees' children shares a common area with the "Calm and Peaceful" patients for their mutual benefit.]

This month the Volunteers' shuttle service resumed with a single cart assisting patients and visitors between buildings and across the parking lots. On May 27, ground breaking was held for the 11,000-square-foot KRMC Cancer Center just north of and onto the Medical Professional Center. The original projected date of completion for the two-story structure was February 2004.

[According to the second annual Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) survey of hospitals taken by the American Hospital Association this year, 16.7% of hospitals offered some type of CAM services last year. Some 269 hospitals out of 1007 responding to the survey (which was mailed to 6105 hospitals) offered CAM in 2002 compared to only 8% of responding facilities in 1998.]

The KRMC Vision Statement was introduced: "To be the region's leading healthcare provider through an environment that fosters respect for others, pride in performance, clinical excellence, and nationally recognized patient satisfaction."

July: The hospital introduced a new Osteopathic Emergency Medicine Residency program, the first of its kind in the Southwest. And a new Family Practice Resident Clinic was opened at 1790 Sycamore Avenue, Suite 1. This would improve the community's access to timely primary care by providing an opportunity for newly trained physicians to refine their clinical skills under the direction of a supervising Board Certified Family Practioner, Dr. Donald Morgan, the Director of Medical Education.

[Also this month, WARMC began its interventional cardiology program adding cardiac stents and balloon angioplasty to service lines.]

KRMC's revised website, now including the first official version of this history, was introduced on August 1. A mobile Positron Emissions Tomography (PET) unit was added to the hospital's diagnostic arsenal beginning August 18. The unit would be stationed at KRMC once every two weeks, so that patients would not have to travel to Phoenix or Las Vegas for this very precise imaging service. (The August 2003 edition of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses recognized KRMC employees Morgan Carroll, RN, BSN, CCRN and Michelle Hall, RN, BSN, CCRN for maintaining their certification continuously for 20 years. Both have worked here since 1980. Janet Gode, RN, BSN, CCRN, with KRMC for ten years and the current director of our emergency room, has also maintained her certification for 21 years.)

On August 26, retired local physician Dr. Arthur Arnold (born in 1913) died in Kingman.

KRMC was named in Money Magazine's fall 2003 issue, "The Best Healthcare for Your Family". HealthGrades rated KRMC to be among the best in the nation for Peripheral Vascular Interventional Procedures. These procedures include angioplasty or other interventions to open a blocked artery to the arms or legs. As a result of its exceptional performance, KRMC was listed among the top five hospitals on the West Coast for these procedures. "This is a service that Kingman residents used to have to travel out of the community to receive. We are honored to be recognized nationally for the great work our physicians and employees do every day to ensure safe and effective treatment," says Brian Turney, President / CEO of KRMC.

September: [The new 31,000-square-foot Mohave County Sheriff's Office opened at 600 W. Beale Street. The 15,000-square-foot main section of the first floor of the 301 W. Beale location which the Sheriff's Annex had occupied since the mid-1970s -- which before that was the site of the old Mohave General Hospital (see 1922) -- was closed and fenced off. The crumbling second story, basement, and back wing of the first story were condemned years ago, unsuitable for anything except some storage. Once-sterile hospital floors are now covered with bird feathers and droppings. The 82-year-old building awaits a decision on its fate. Some have advocated keeping the front facade and possibly building an amphitheater behind it.]

October: Nutrition Services was providing 225,000 meals per year in the cafeteria, 159,000 other transactions (mostly separate coffee or snacks in the cafeteria, with some support group refreshments, Board and staff meeting dinners elsewhere around the campus, etc.), plus 132,000 patient meals. The latter are derived from approximately 500 different diet plans ranging from bulk/special nourishments to restricted or modified meals. The total includes guest meals served in the patients' rooms. Some 49 full-time employees and 21 part-time employees make up the department which includes four clinical dieticians. About 70% of the foodstuffs are convenience or institutional-pack, with the remaining 30% or so of the meals being made from scratch here on campus.

From the 23rd to 26th of this month, Ilan Govan, M.D., C.M.D., Medical Director of KRMC Hospice, participated as an educator at the Education for Physicians on End-of-Life Care conference at Lake Havasu City.

[With more than 579 employees, Western Arizona Regional Medical Center (WARMC) was the largest employer in Bullhead City.]

December: By month's end, the first version of a formal display of the history of KRMC (based on material from this website history) had been assembled in the main lobby of the hospital.

2004 - January: The Kingman Chapter of the National Association of Health Unit Coordinators sponsored a regional seminar titled "People in Crisis." Eighteen persons from three states attended.

February: At mid-month, the interactive Applicant Manager software was installed on KRMC's website for persons interested in applying for employment here. Two computer kiosks were set up in the hallway outside of the Human Resources Department for walk-in applicants to use. Confidentiality has been increased and prospective managers get the applications sooner.

April 23: The grand